


The Unpayable Debt That I Owed You

by trashing-the-trashmouth (summerforbran)



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: Angst, Apocalyptic AU, Confessions, Hurt/Comfort, Kinda?, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:08:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27217672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/summerforbran/pseuds/trashing-the-trashmouth
Summary: Richie makes a desperate bid for Eddie’s life.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 4
Kudos: 6
Collections: Shipoween 2020 - The Halloween Ship Exchange!





	The Unpayable Debt That I Owed You

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hearthouses](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hearthouses/gifts).



Richie didn’t know what he was hearing at first, as he clung to Eddie’s limp body. His own screams drowned out everything except that voice that had sounded in his head. Given the emotional state he’d been in, the voice could’ve easily been a hallucination. Still, he answered it with the only thing he could think of. _What would you give to bring Eddie back?_ “Anything. Fucking anything.”

How was Richie supposed to know that it would’ve taken his answer to mean the entire world? He thought that it would take something that he actually had the right to give.

The next thing he knew, his surroundings were disappearing. Not just the interior of the sewer, though. All of the Losers were disappearing as well. Richie couldn’t be completely sure, but he thought that he saw a look of shock and pain cross over Ben’s face. Before Richie could think any further on it, he was back in his room in the Derry Townhouse. 

“What the fuck?” Richie whispered, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands. It definitely didn’t feel like a normal nightmare. Had they even gone back to the Town House after killing Pennywise? He certainly couldn’t remember going back, no matter how hard he racked his brain. Had any of it even happened at all? Everything felt _off_ somehow, and he couldn’t shake the feeling that something horrible had happened.

Frantic pounding on his door drew Richie from his thoughts. “Richie?!” Eddie’s voice sounded just as panicked as his knocking was. “Richie _please_! Please open the door!” It wasn’t long until Eddie broke down into painful sounding sobs.

“Eds?” Richie shot out of bed, and ran to the door faster than he’d moved in a long time. In the midst of his panic, his hands fumbled with the doorknob. Not thinking clearly, he nearly believed that he wasn’t going to get the door open. It still felt like part of the nightmare. Maybe he was still asleep, trapped. Hopelessly trapped. 

When he got the door open, Eddie was a mess. Though there were no physical injuries that Richie could see. He wasn’t spitting up blood, no gaping hole in his chest. For that, Richie was grateful. He let himself believe for a second that the night before had just been a nightmare. Even if that meant that they still had to go fight the clown. Eddie was _alive_.

That little thread of hope died quickly.

Without thinking, Richie wrapped his arms around Eddie. He was desperate to feel the warmth of his body, but Eddie didn’t reciprocate. He felt limp in Richie’s arms. “What’s wrong, Eds?” Richie tried to keep the rising fear out of his voice, but deep down he knew what Eddie was going to say.

“We went down into the sewers…” Eddie’s brow furrowed in deep thought. As though he was trying hard to remember exactly what had happened. Or he was trying to come up with the words to make whatever he wanted to say believable. “I… I saved you, but after that…” Eddie’s sentence was cut off by another sob, and he clung to Richie, his nails digging into Richie’s back. “I don’t know how I’m still here, Rich. I shouldn’t be.”

For once, Richie didn’t know what to say. His nightmare hadn’t been a nightmare at all, but that didn’t matter at the moment. He wanted to believe that Eddie had been gifted another chance at life free of charge. They had killed Pennywise. Who was to say that it wasn’t just a reward for a job well done? Eddie deserved to live a normal life. For a moment, he’d almost forgotten the bargain he’d made. _Anything…_ the voice whispered in his head once more, but he pushed it back. He told himself that if he ignored it, it couldn’t mean anything. “Let’s get the others. They’ll want to see you.” 

***  
After a frantic search for everybody else, it was clear that they were not there. All of their belongings were, but there was no sign of the Losers themselves.

In fact, there was no sign of _anybody_.

Stores in town had been left open with nobody in them. Bikes and cars alike were abandoned on the street. “It looks like the fucking Rapture happened.” Eddie’s voice was soft, as though he feared that speaking any louder would draw Pennywise (or something even worse) out of its hiding place.

Richie couldn’t even answer him. He knew that this had to do with him. He’d traded everybody’s life for Eddie’s. The lives of potentially billions of innocent people who never should’ve been caught up in this mess had been extinguished… _because of him_. Mike had called them all back to Derry to end Pennywise’s hold on the town, and Richie realized that he may as well have spat in Mike’s face. Mike was gone, though. Richie had nobody to blame but himself, much to his dismay. _I only wanted to trade my own life!_

In a last ditch effort to try to prove that somebody somewhere was still alive, Richie desperately called his manager’s number. Even Steve asking him what the fuck was going on would be a welcome change from the empty town. 

_“I’m sorry. The number you have reached has been disconnected, or is no longer in service…”_

***  
Six months had passed since they had fought Pennywise, and brought Eddie back from the dead. It felt like a lifetime ago. 

Richie had never fully told Eddie what he had done, and it was taking a heavy toll on him. For a while, he tried to convince himself that he had accepted it. When that failed, he tried denial. Still, he could not stop his conscience from screaming at him constantly. _“This is all on you, Tozier!”_ Every day was getting more difficult for him to get through without having some kind of internal breakdown. Even with Eddie at his side. He knew there was no way he could ever wash the blood off of his hands. 

Richie’s progressively worsening state didn’t escape Eddie’s notice. One night after Richie had disappeared for a particularly long time, and came back looking completely worn out, Eddie couldn’t take it any longer. “Rich, what’s going on with you?” He grabbed a hold of Richie’s hand, tightening his grip when Richie tried to pull away from him. “You’re hiding something from me. I know you want to tell me something, so just tell me. Get it off your chest.” 

Richie opened his mouth for a second, but reconsidered whatever he was going to say, and snapped his mouth shut again. Eddie deserved to know the truth of what Richie had done. If he ended up despising him for it, well… Richie knew that was a possibility. He couldn’t even deny that he’d deserve it. Still, he couldn’t make himself talk. He just shook his head, hoping that Eddie would drop it. At least for the day. He felt like a kid, hoping that a bad grade would go uncommented on, but knowing it wouldn’t. 

“Richie…” Eddie’s hand gingerly caressed Richie’s cheek. “It’s me. You don’t have to be afraid to tell me anything. Let me carry whatever it is with you.” Richie was quite literally the only person he had now, and he was the only person Richie had. He would’ve done anything for Richie. Even before the apparent end of the world, he’d given his life. None of his feelings had changed in that time. “One minute I was dying… and the next I was at your door in the Townhouse.” 

Eventually, Richie’s already unstable walls came crashing down, and he broke into a mix of a sob and laughter. Eddie wasn’t sure which was more disturbing in the circumstances. “I didn’t mean for all of this to happen!” Richie cried out. “I didn’t know it was going to be like this.” 

His tone of voice took Eddie aback. He wasn’t sure if he’d ever heard that much raw guilt and pain in a person’s voice before. He’d certainly never heard _Richie_ sound like that. He started speaking, but Richie quickly cut him off. 

“I just… I just couldn’t imagine living without you. Not after I’d just found you again,” Richie said once he’d recovered a bit. “I couldn’t go on knowing that you died saving me. So I said that I’d give anything for you. I thought that just meant my life for yours.” 

“Oh… Richie,” The look on Eddie’s face was full of nothing but sympathy as he gripped both of Richie’s hands in his. He couldn’t imagine the weight Richie had been carrying around for months. If Eddie had felt any anger at Richie’s confession, it had been quickly extinguished. He couldn’t imagine the weight of the guilt Richie must’ve carried for all of that time. If he’d been in Richie’s position, he thought it would’ve broken him long before. 

“Sometimes I think I’m still trapped in the deadlights.” Richie continued. “I feel like I’m trapped in the deadlights, and I’m gonna wake up on the ground at any minute, and I won’t be able to save you.” His hands were shaking violently, and he was talking fast. As though every word had been waiting for six months to erupt out of him. “Then I really will have to go through the rest of my life without you, but I just found you again. God, I love you! I don’t want to lose you!” Normally, Richie never would’ve let those words leave his lips, at least not like that. There was nothing he could do to stop them, though. “I didn’t have any right trading anybody’s life but my own. I don’t understand how it happened, but it’s my fault.”

“Richie, we’re both here,” Eddie said, wrapping his arms around Richie’s neck. He pulled him down slightly to kiss him. “I’m real, and I’m not going to leave you again.” Eddie didn’t know how much time they had, as the Earth had effectively ended, but he knew that neither of them could do it alone. “I’m with you until the end.”


End file.
